According to CVG Sony is acquiring the rights to Crash Bandicoot from Activision. Crash Bandicoot became the official mascot of the first Sony PlayStation console and was a popular franchise for many years until it was sold as part of a deal with Vivendi.

A bidding war has broken out for assets related to bankrupt developer TimeGate Studios, according to this Wall Street Journal report. According to WSJ rights to the first-person shooter Section 8 as well as TimeGate's unreleased free-to-play title Minimum are at the center of a feud between three separate companies including CNH Partners, France-based Atari SA and Southpeak Interactive Corp.

Heritage Global Partners will hold an auction to sell off the intellectual property of 38 Studios and Big Huge Games. The auction is being held on behalf of Richard J. Land, the Rhode Island court-appointed receiver, on December 11. The deadline for submitting initial bids is 5 pm EST on December 4.

A leak of the most controversial section of the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty is making waves today. The documents, released on Wikileaks, reveals the most contentious parts of the treaty dealing with intellectual property rights. Some have gone so far as to call the language in this section of the document hauntingly similar to the language in SOPA.

On this week's show, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the latest GamePolitics poll, the controversy over a crunch time tweet from Crytek, the cost of Six Strikes, a special needs student being suspended from school for drawing a bomb, and an Illinois State Attorney calling for an "economic boycott" of GTA V. Download Episode 74 now: SuperPAC Episode 74 (1 hour, 12 minutes) 33.1 MB.

Lawyers for rap artist Daz Dillinger, also known as "Dat Nigga Daz" and "Delmar Drew Arnaud," sent a cease and desist letter to Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games to block the use of his songs in Grand Theft Auto V. Speaking to TMZ, Dillinger said that he took action because it is all about "respecting an artist's work" and added that "Rockstar didn't do that here and I can't let them get away with it."

Last month, developer Comcept launched a Kickstarter for Mighty No. 9, a new video game that is counting on your love of Mega Man for its success.

Seriously, almost every sentence of the project's pitch name drops the Blue Bomber.

"Classic Japanese side-scrolling action, evolved and transformed by Keiji Inafune, an all-star team of veteran Mega Man devs..." (Note: Inafune is the character designer/producer behind most of the Mega Man games. He left Capcom in 2010)

Wasteland Kings has been renamed to avoid a trademark dispute. Super Crate Box and Ridiculous Fishing developer Vlambeer revealed that it has changed the name of its post-apocalyptic rogue-like shooter Wasteland Kings to Nuclear Throne. The name change comes after a branding dispute with inXile Entertainment, whose members made the original Interplay game Wasteland.

A listing on the Heritage Global Partners' website reveals that 38 Studios' assets for its two game franchises - the MMO Project Copernicus and the action RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - will be sold at an online auction on November 14. Also on the block are several familiar Big Huge Games properties and game engine technology. The auction begins on the aforementioned date at 9:00 AM EDT and ends on November 15 at 12:00 PM EDT.

It looks like Rhode Island will finally have an auction to sell off 38 Studios' intellectual property. According to an IGN report citing WPRI.com, the court-appointed receiver for the assets, Richard Land, says that an auction will happen "soon." The state took possession of the 38 Studios IP after the company defaulted on a $75 million loan and filed for bankruptcy.

It's bad enough to steal someone else's work wholesale, but it is beyond the pale to defend such action by saying "we couldn't reach the original developers to present it with a deal." In April of this year Taiwanese developer Rocky Hong released the puzzle game Magnetized on GameStop's Kongregate. The game proved to be very popular with the Kongregate community who downloaded it an impressive 280,000 times.

The Powell Group has inked a licensing partnership with IDW Publishing, America's fourth-largest comics publisher. The company will serve as the primary liaison between licensees in the video games industry and IDW's properties. The deal covers all platforms including current and next-generation console platforms and mobile devices.

In Episode 58 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the GamePolitics polls, various news related to Naughty Dog's "The Last of Us," the Australian Classification Board's first game ban under the new ratings system for games, and a whole lot more. Download Episode 58 now: SuperPAC Episode 58 (1 hour, 9 minutes) 64.9 MB.

Beamdog and Overhaul Games have pulled their Baldur's Gate remake, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition from online stores. The game had been available for PC, Mac and iOS devices. Beamdog and Overhaul Games president Trent Oster issued a statement this morning on the web site for the game saying that the game was pulled due to ongoing legal issues related to the franchise. The latest patch and an Android version of the remake will not be released either.

Apogee Software has filed a lawsuit against Gearbox Software in a Texas state court claiming that the developer and publisher who took over Duke Nukem Forver owes it more than $2 million in unpaid royalties and fees. Apogee's lawsuit alleges that Gearbox failed to pay the money it owed to the company from the 2010 purchase agreement of Duke Nukem Forever and that Gearbox refused to allow the Apogee to conduct an "independent audit" of the royalties Gearbox has earned on the game.

In a FORM 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), bankrupt game publisher THQ disclosed that certain transactions that were the result of a massive asset auction have closed. The company also disclosed particulars on the current employment of its interim president Edward L. Kaufman.

The State of Rhode Island has raked in $713,000 from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning sales since it acquired various Amalur assets last summer from 38 Studios, according to GameSpot. The figure is from cumulative revenue from ongoing sales of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning made through Steam, but not physical copies of the game.

Some game developers in China are known for taking liberties with copyrighted material (read: ignoring copyrights altogether), but a MOBA-style game called 300 Heroes pointed out by Crusader Cast is probably the most blatant mash-ups of stolen material you'll ever see.

A Russian coder and hacker known only as "Barabus" has ported Ska Studios popular "M" rated XBLA action game The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile to the PC. But before you celebrate, this PC version of the game is not an official port and doesn't exactly have the blessing of Ska Studios founder James Silva. It is basically pirated version of the game.

Barabus defends his action by arguing that the developer of the game should have made a PC port himself and that by not doing so is "not very nice."

Back in March La Quadrature du Net (a non-profit association defending the rights and freedoms of citizens on the Internet) joined 47 European and International organizations in asking the European Parliament to exclude provisions related to patents, copyright, trademarks, data protection, geographical indications, or other forms of so-called intellectual property from the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA).

This should come as no shock to anyone that has been following the saga between the state of Rhode Island and bankrupt game development house 38 Studios: the state of Rhode Island has decided that it will sell off the studios' assets (which it now owns) to pay down some of the deficit it was left with after 38 Studios went bankrupt.

World of Tanks developer Wargaming.net has filed a lawsuit against Changyou.com and Beijing Gamease Age Digital Technology Co. in the United States Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The lawsuit alleges that the defendant(s) "stole" Wargaming.net's intillectual property to create an online tank game called "Project Tanks" that is "disturbingly similar" to World of Tanks. Wargaming.net is using the law firm Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.

Three former Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) America employees have struck out on their own to create a new independent and digital content publishing company located in Los Angeles called Acttil. The name is an acronym for "acceptance +creativity +teamwork +trust +innovation +love." The studio features the talents of long-time and now former NIS America employees Jack Niida, Hiroko Kanazashi, and Nao Miyazawa.

Episode 50 of the show is certainly a milestone for hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight (and myself) - which just happens to mark nearly a year of the podcast to boot. So, yay for us! On this week's show we discuss the prank on pirates played by the maker of Game Dev Tycoon, the Nyan Cat / Keyboard Cat- Warner Bros. lawsuit, the latest poll over at GamePolitics, and some other fun stuff. Download Episode 50 now: SuperPAC Episode 50 (1 hour, 15 minutes) 68.6 MB.

Responding to the widespread reporting that the "Nyan Cat" creator and "Keyboard Cat" creator sued Warner Bros. over the inclusion of the Internet memes in the game Scribblenauts Unlimited, Christopher "Nyan" Orlando Torres said that he tried to talk to Warner Bros. about the issue but was disrespected on multiple occasions.

Grasshopper Manufacturer Goichi "Suda51" Suda says that his various games have not had the best sales because of the way publishers treat its unique gaming experiences. Suda51's games include Shadows of the Damned, Killer7 and No More Heroes.

Having worked with some pretty huge publishers over the years (Sega, EA, etc.), Suda51 feels that the companies don't understand how to handle indie titles like his:

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Wymorence: For me it just boils down to the fact that, even at a giant company, when a game comes out annually it just gives it a vibe of being rushed out the door. And god knows Unity sucked some major lemur with all its bugs...03/31/2015 - 4:22pm

PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm

james_fudge: Conster: the larger issue is that Ind. does not protect LGBTQ+ people under state law03/31/2015 - 12:11pm

PHX Corp: @MP I think it is confirmed(not an April Fools joke) http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/31/nintendo-direct-confirmed-for-wednesday-april-1st/03/31/2015 - 12:00pm

Conster: Apparently Pence intends to amend SB101 so denying service isn't allowed - without explicitly protecting LGBT+ and while still allowing the many other things you can get away with now if it's motivated by your religious beliefs.03/31/2015 - 11:53am

MaskedPixelante: http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/30/rumour-nintendo-direct-on-april-1st/ A supposed full leak of tomorrow's Nintendo Direct, so you can all laugh and laugh about how wrong it is.03/31/2015 - 11:35am

PHX Corp: http://kotaku.com/why-a-tekken-7-character-is-being-called-a-phoney-1694724959 Why a Tekken 7 Character Is Being Called a Phoney03/31/2015 - 10:08am